Sparks
Erik Anderson

The truth is we were never as prosaic as all that; we were never rosy-fingered claimants in any uncivil actions. Still, and despite our protestations to the contrary, we were often seen as such, hacking our way through the thickets that seemed to have been placed between our house and theirs for the sole purpose, seemingly, of restricting our circuits.
So that by the time we had made our way through the briars, in the middle of which were effigies depicting our better intentions, the gables had already started crumbling. Our neighbors in that once shiny, imitation country house had already died or were in the process.
We sat on their porch biding time with our baskets and sundries, eating what of theirs we could before striking the matches off our chins and burning it down -- the screams of the few remaining residents falling on our deaf ears. We danced there, the sparks, like augers of some still unseen remorse, flitting above us in the elemental air.

1996 © 2006